Setting: A cozy beer garden in Munich on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The table is filled with glasses of Helles, pretzels, and two long-time friends, Lukas and Jonas, are catching up. Birds are chirping, and the faint hum of chatter surrounds them.
Lukas (lifting his beer):
Alright, Jonas — Prost! [He freezes, glass halfway raised.]
Wait! Look me in the eye. You have to. Seven years of bad sex if you don’t. It’s serious!
Jonas (chuckling as he raises his beer):
Oh come on, Lukas. You actually believe that? Seven years of bad sex just because we didn’t lock eyes over a wheat beer?
Lukas (earnest, wagging a finger):
It’s not a joke, man. It’s tradition. You never mess with the toast. I swear, it’s cursed if you don’t do it right.
Jonas:
You know you sound like my grandma trying to scare me with stories about stepping on cracks and breaking my mother’s back.
Lukas (grinning but serious):
That’s different. This one’s proven — ask any German. You toast, you look into the eyes. It’s respect, it’s energy, it’s…karma or something.
Jonas (taking a sip regardless):
Karma? You suddenly Buddhist now? Come on. The idea that bad sex follows from a misplaced glance is…let’s say, creatively irrational.
Lukas (leaning in):
Look, when I was dating Anna, we were at this dinner party, and I forgot to look her in the eyes during a toast. That same night, total disaster. We knocked over a candle, the cat got sick, and we had the worst argument ever. Coincidence? I think not.
Jonas (laughs, trying not to spit out his beer):
That’s called a bad night, not a cosmic punishment! Correlation isn’t causation, my superstitious friend. Maybe the candle fell because you were tipsy. And the cat probably just ate something weird.
Lukas (mock offended):
So science man says the universe doesn’t care if we clink glasses the wrong way?
Jonas:
Exactly. The atoms in your beer don’t know if you made eye contact. It’s social conditioning. I mean, I get that traditions have value, but they’re not magic spells.
Lukas (shrugs):
Maybe not magic, but rituals do shape behavior. I feel more connected when we toast properly. It’s like pressing “save” on a good memory.
Jonas (softens):
Okay, that’s fair. There’s something about rituals that gives people a sense of order — I get that. But don’t threaten me with bad sex, dude. That’s just mean.
Lukas (laughing):
Hey, just trying to protect your future! What if you unknowingly cursed your next date?
Jonas (smirking):
Well, if she dumps me because I forgot eye contact during a toast, I’ll know to run anyway. Imagine our fights — “You didn’t knock on wood! We’re doomed!”
Lukas:
Alright, alright. Maybe I do take it too seriously. But humor me, yeah? At least pretend to look like you care during a toast.
Jonas (grinning and raising his glass):
Only if you promise not to sacrifice a pretzel to the beer gods next.
Lukas (with mock solemnity):
The Pretzel Gods are real, Jonas. And they’re salty when ignored.
Jonas:
Fine. [locks eyes] Prost, my mystical friend.
Lukas:
Prost, my skeptical scientist. And may our sex lives remain…undisturbed.
[They clink glasses with exaggerated seriousness and burst out laughing.]
Science Vs Superstition 
Tell Us What You Think